Debuting in National Lampoon #22 (pictured right), SON O' GOD was created by Michael Choquette, Sean Kelly and Neal Adams. Here's how it happened, according to "A Futile and Stupid Gesture":

National Lampoon's Michael Choquette and Sean Kelly had long discussed creating a WASP superhero who fights Catholicism. Deciding to do it as a comic, they invented Son O’ God as a buff, caped, haloed Jesus (wearing a gold “JC” belt) whose Clark Kent is a nebbishy Brooklynite (thirty-year old Benny David) who still lives with his overbearing parents.

Dedicated to the virtues of peace and love, Son O’ God sets out to defeat the villain Antichrist and his evil army of religious fanatics. The image Choquette and Kelly had in mind for the Antichrist was the Pope himself.

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SON O' GOD COMICS #1 (National Lampoon #22, Jan. 1972)

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Kelly and Choquette sought out Neal Adams, who drew Batman for DC Comics. No one, they thought, could be a better choice to draw their pope-fighting superhero.

Meeting Adams at the DC offices, however, Choquette began to suspect that they might not have the right man.

“I get there and see this guy who looks like a big Irish cop,” Choquette says, “And I’m going to come in with my anti-pope jokes.”